Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A Peculiar Wind

There is a peculiar event that occurs here as the lower country
warms and air currents rise to my island in the sky. I can hear the
wind coming from a distance, like a corporeal entity with form and
definition. Were I to look down on these lands from above, I would be
able to see blocks of the forest succumbing to the ministrations of
this wind; acres of Ponderosa bending and swaying as if to allow some
tremendous creature to pass. Imagine a coyote in the tall grass. The
coyote cannot be seen, but from the vantage point of a man, his
movements are discernible. I can sense the wind, beginning at the
cliff's edge and traveling in a not so direct path. Somehow it always
finds me.

The silence of this Arcadian landscape accentuates the
event. The rustle and rumble of the trees produces a sound so like a
truck on a gravel road as to be indistinguishable. I hear it from the
distance and my ears follow as it builds and grows closer until
finally it is upon me. The lofty pines commence their frantic dance.
A moment later it is still. I can listen as this passing traveler
fades into the distance, around the corner, and ebbs to silence once
more.

On lonely mornings at my camp, over coffee, I believe it is
an approaching truck. It excites me to think I might see people. I
find myself hoping to meet them. I need to communicate. I need to
hear the stories of others. I need to smile and celebrate and share.

“Now this one has to be a truck”, I would tell Maya. “No
wind makes a sound like that. Listen. It has just passed that narrow
place where we saw the white wolf”. Then the lofty pines commence
their frantic dance once more. This time they seem to mock me. These
visitations make me lonelier, so I descend the valley and busy myself
at the lake. (Where the wind is only the wind).

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About Me

I was arrested for possession of LSD in 1992 and threatened with a 42 year sentence. I split and spent the next fifteen years as a fugitive. The last five years I lived in the forests of Arizona. These are essays about some adventures I had during my journey to freedom .